Divorce and pension question

Stevev99

Hi, not sure whether this should be in the pension section but it is related to a divorce many years ago?


When I divorced my first wife, it was before the days of pension splitting however the court order did provide her with 1/6th of any 'maximum' lump sum.
When the rules of my company pension changed making it possible to make the maximum lump sum, in theory the whole pension fund I quickly had a new court order issued and agreed to explicitly state that for the purposes of the lump sum allocation, the calculation to be used should be no higher than 1/6th of 2.25 times annual pension payment. So for example, pension is £30k multiplied by 2.25 = £67,500 and 16.66% of that equals £11245.


I have however just started AVC's and the company pension administrator are trying to say that AVC's would count towards any lump sum assessment. How can that be if I don't plan to take any of the AVC's as pension and withdraw the lot as a lump sum? This seems completely wrong in my mind?
Any ideas?

HappyMJ

You could go back to the court to approve a splitting of the pension now instead of when you retire. Could you maybe offer her £11,245 in cash now to finish the matter once and for all.

Stevev99

Thanks, offering the cash now has come up in conversation!
To be clear, there is absolutely no pension splitting involved in this divorce since was 6 months before that came in (phew!).


This is purely about allocation of 1/6th of any lump sum allocated to the pension.